By Sir Charles Hobhouse, Bart. 



85 



And, finally, the disappearance not only of the small freeholder 

 but oven of the customary tenant, and the creation of the class of 

 great landowners, absolutely free of their properties, subject only to 

 the burdens deemed requisite for the maintenance of the general 

 commonwealth. 



Before quitting this subject of the comparative status of the 

 manor at the various periods mentioned, I cannot pass over one most 

 remarkable fact, viz., the great increase in the acreage of pasture as 

 compared with arable lands. I take it that the eight hundred and 

 thirty- six acres of land that composed the home farm in 1535 in 

 our parish, were all within a ring-fence of the Priory, very much as 

 are now the lands which are attached to the manor house. 



Yet in 1535, notwithstanding that the monks had a goodly stock 

 of beasts, sheep, and pigs, the pasture lands were in proportion of 

 only thirty-eight to seven hundred and sixty-two acres of arable. 



At the present time, in the manor house division of six hundred 

 and eighty-six acres, the proportion is two hundred and forty-one 

 acres of pasture to two hundred and eighty-seven acres of arable land. 



I presume that the small quantity of hay and the few acres of 

 pasture were kept for the use of the monks' horses, mules, &c, and 

 that the rest of their live-stock was maintained upon the produce of 

 the arable land. 



But as labor became dearer, and arable produce of more value > 

 this must have been found to be an extravagant practice ; and when 

 to this was added the obvious fact, that the capriciousness of the 

 climate rendered it more suitable to the profitable culture of pasture 

 rather than of arable lands, the process of conversion from arable 

 into pasture must have proceeded in an ever increasing ratio. 



That this process should at this moment be proceeding more 

 rapidly than ever is natural enough, a decrease in the value of cereals 

 having been superadded to the other motive causes above-mentioned, 

 but it seems to me to be obvious that it is mainly to the capricious- 

 ness of the climate, rather than to any outside competition for prices, 

 that we owe the so great conversion of arable into pasture land. 



To return to the year 1535-6. It was in this year that the 

 dissolution of our Priory was brought about. The monks were 



